Pharmacies are an important source of medications and health-related products for a wide range of people including, for example, retail customers, mail-order customers, hospitalized patients and residents of alternate site (e.g., long term care) facilities. A pharmacy serving the needs of such people may be located, for example, in a retail environment such as a drugstore, or in a location adjunct to the hospital or alternate site facility. A typical pharmacy is staffed by at least one registered pharmacist and may be further staffed by trained pharmacy technicians and clerks.
Pharmacy personnel provide a broad range of services and information. For example, the pharmacist typically has overall responsibility for ensuring that all 20 prescription orders for medications and health-related products are filled properly. The pharmacy technicians may assist the pharmacist in filling of the prescription orders and in replenishment of the medication inventory. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians commonly provide other important services such as interaction with customers, doctors and care givers, a providing of health-related advice, data entry, and a processing of medical and financial information associated with a filling of the prescription orders. Providing advice and information may include direct interaction with others, while data processing and order filling typically involve interaction between the pharmacy personnel and a computer or with the medications and products needed to fill the prescription orders. For example, filling of the prescription orders may involve locating one or more medications or products at a static storage shelf or other storage location, dispensing a quantity of the medications or products required to fill each prescription in an order, manually packaging the medications in containers (such as bottles and vials), and dispensing the packaged medications and products to the customer, doctor, or care giver. As used herein, the term “patient” refers to any person or persons for whom a prescription order is filled.
It is highly desirable for the pharmacist and pharmacy technician to be available for providing value added services, such as by providing health-related advice and information to customers, doctors and care givers. It is also desirable to fill each prescription order at a lowest possible cost, as explained for example in copending application Ser. No. 10/283,529, herein incorporated by reference. Such cost function may be defined in terms of many variables, such as the total time required to fill each prescription order, the spacial distance traveled by the pharmacy personnel within the pharmacy in order to fill each prescription order, and the cost to the pharmacy of the medication and products used to fill each prescription order. The cost function may also be constructed in order to obtain cost reduction through coordination of the filling of co-pending prescription orders.
Additional desired characteristics of a pharmacy include a need for accuracy and the elimination of errors in the filling of prescription orders.
Accordingly, there has been a growing use and acceptance of automation in connection with filling of prescription orders by pharmacies. Such automation can include the use of computerized information databases for processing medical and financial information, the use of automated apparatus for dispensing medications and Articles, and the use of machine-readable code (e.g., bar coding) for purposes of ensuring accuracy in filling of the prescription orders and in maintaining inventory control. An improvement in pharmacy efficiency results in a better overall level of service to the customer, doctor or care giver.
Despite benefits resulting from a use of automation in the pharmacy environment, there is generally a need for human beings as participants in the prescription order filling process. Pharmacy personnel are required to make many complex decisions and many tasks may be performed more efficiently in a manual manner. In addition, judgments must be made, for example, as to the medications and products best suited to the customer's needs. It may be necessary to determine the most efficient path for locating, obtaining, packaging, and dispensing individual components of a prescription order, in a manner that minimizes a potential for error.
It is therefore desirable to implement systems that eliminate risks of error while improving efficiency. It is also desirable to improve logistics and quality control in a human-assisted prescription order filling process within the pharmacy.